Clashes in Venezuela as economic shortages continue to bite

A year after violent clashes between opposition protestors and government
forces left 43 dead, protestors returned to the streets of Venezuela

A student demonstrates in front of a line of riot policemen during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in San CristobalPhoto: AFP

By Peter Foster, Washington and agencies

8:47PM GMT 12 Feb 2015

Students clashed with riot police in the Venezuelan city of San Cristobal yesterday on the one-year anniversary of anti-government riots that left 43 people dead and a leading opposition leader in jail.

The protests came as Venezuela’s socialist economy faces mounting shortages of food and medicines after being badly hit be a collapse in world oil prices this year that has left the country short of dollars needed to import many basic goods.

The clashes in San Cristobal, the volatile western city that was a hotbed of protests in 2014, broke out after hooded demonstrators threw rocks and later Molotov cocktails at National Guard soldiers and police who responded with tear gas.

Five security officials and three demonstrators were hurt in the standoff, and four students arrested, the Reuters news agency reported, citing witnesses and state authorities.

Meanwhile in the capital, Caracas, two rival marches played out in pouring rain as student protestors competed for attention against a government-sponsored rally supporting Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s beleaguered president.

Mr Maduro, who was designated as successor to Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s late strongman president who died of cancer in 2013, is struggling in the face of plummeting personal approval ratings and a mounting economic crisis.

With many supermarket shelves lying empty and real inflation now running at nearly 100 per cent, according to analysts, Mr Maduro now has only 20 per cent support according to recent opinion polls.

Dozens of government buses could be seen at the start of the route for the rally to support Mr Maduro, indicating that some marchers were government workers brought in by officials, the Associated Press reported.

Students who oppose the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro march in San Cristobal (AFP)

The students were heavily outnumbered and were cordoned off by police as they tried to mount an unauthorized march to a church for a mass in honor of demonstrators who died. Instead, a priest came out and said brief prayers in the open-air.

Mindful of nearly four months of clashes last year, and a recent government ordinance authorising police to use lethal force against demonstrators, some Caracas residents stayed at home to avoid trouble.

“We are marching peacefully to honor those who fell," said Fabio Valentini, a 21-year-old pro-opposition student from Andres Bello Catholic University who was on the streets last year when the first victims were shot dead.

“Venezuela, today, is in a far worse situation than last year. The economy is in crisis. Crime is worse. Our aim is not to topple the regime, but to demand rights and changes to failed policies.”

On the other side, Javier Castillo, 20, a student at the Bolivarian University out supporting Mr Maduro said the country would ride out the economic storm that has seen foreign corporations write off hundreds of millions dollars and a sharp spike in bond prices.

“Oil prices will rise again and we'll be ok,” he said standing among thousands of singing, dancing and banner-waving Maduro supporters at the rally in Plaza Venezuela.

Photographs posted on Twitter showed hundreds of demonstrators in San Cristobal as students bragged they had “taken back the streets” before being clear with volleys of tear gas and lines of police in riot-gear.

Leopoldo Lopez, the opposition leader who spearheaded last year's protests before being arrested, sent a message from jail. “The fight continues," he said via a Twitter account run by his wife. "If you tire, you lose.”